Contact: Naftuli Moster, Exec. Director, naftuli@yaffed.org
When: Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 1pm
Where: The steps of City Hall in lower Manhattan
Who: Members of Yaffed, along with former Yeshiva students and invited elected officials
Why: A new law passed as part of the 2018 NY state budget was crafted specifically to affect only Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish children. It seeks to weaken the NY State Education Department’s ability to provide sufficient oversight to ensure that these children receive an adequate education.
This law was passed as result of the efforts of Simcha Felder, a State Senator from Brooklyn who alone held up the state budget in order to insert language intended to deprive students of their right to a basic education that will prepare them for good-paying jobs and success in life.
New York State law requires non-public schools to provide an education that is “at least substantially equivalent” to that of public schools, so that no student is left in ignorance. The law requires non-public schools to provide instruction in “arithmetic, reading, spelling, writing, the English language, geography, United States history, civics, hygiene, physical training, the history of New York state and science.”
But this law has not been enforced for decades, by either the state or the city. The Mayor and the NYC Department of Education has delayed taking any action for over two and a half years, even after they had promised to do so repeatedly. The NY Commissioner of Education was in the process of drafting new guidelines to enforce the law, which apparently prompted Sen. Felder’s actions to attempt to exempt Yeshivas from meeting any educational standards. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of children are not receiving the basic education to which they are entitled.
At the press conference, advocates from Yaffed, former Yeshiva students and elected officials will speak out against extremists who are strong-arming our government to block sensible education policies, and. will discuss next steps in the fight to protect the human rights of all children to be adequately educated.
For more information on Yaffed’s five-year campaign to achieve a better education for ultra-Orthodox children, see www.yaffed.org
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One of Cynthia Nixon’s main campaign issues in the New York gubernatorial race comes from a 1993 lawsuit filed by a group of New York City parents who believed their students weren’t receiving a fair education, In fact Nixon centered her first Albany appearance since launching her campaign around the issue of school funding , perhaps an effort should be made to reach out to her, something which will obviously bring some media attention (on the other hand it might push Governor Coumo to just double down in support of Felder)
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